Well, I actually think the animation in the series is terrific and for me, the still shots and slow swooping pans across the screen are indicative of the style of anime, for me it's very beautiful, really capturing the cyberpunk aesthetic of the Japanese future.
However, the conflicting styles of the two movies is another thing. Granted, the original movie was made in the mid-nineties and as such, the animation reflects this, but they chose to stay true to it's cyberpunk roots with the futuristic vehicles, gadgets etc. GITS: SAC has a much more contemporary feel, more of a natural progression of the future, aside from the cybernetics and the giant robots of various types it feels like a world I could envision myself living in sometime in the future.
As for the second movie, Innocence, Oshii seemed to make a very strange choice artistically, moving from cyberpunk to a throwback to 40's/50's noir, suddenly all the vehicles on the road are retrofit American sedans, the costumes, interiors all suggest we're in this time period, only the constant presence of cyborgs and the net reaffirms that this is actually the future. I thought it was odd for Oshii to make such a dramatic u-turn with the style, for me Innocence looks more hi-tech (the graphics, interfaces etc) but fundamentally appears to be a throwback to classic noir and I wonder why Oshii decided on this stylistic decision. After all, the second movie only takes place 3 years after the first, so there is no way that the styles and consumer attitudes could change so dramatically in such a short space of time. I would say Oshii simply wanted to try a new approach and used creative license to get around the apparent inconsistencies between the two films, but although I enjoyed this second outing for GITS, I found these artistic choices to be somewhat distracting and not altogether succesful.
"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, WHOA... Lois, this is not my Batman glass."
reply
share